Is Sugar Bad For Me?
Is Sugar Bad For Me?
We’re not going to sugar coat this answer, 🙂 sugar doesn’t belong in a human diet. But let’s answer a slightly different question that most people are probably thinking instead.
Can I Still Have Sugary Foods?
Over the years sugar has gotten a pretty bad wrap. And, to tell you the truth sugar is no way healthy for you. But to simply say you should never have sugar ever again is probably going to make some people say “yay right”. If you can cut 100% of your sugar intake you have the will power way beyond most people. And truthfully, I say good freaking job!
But for the rest of us lets go over a different way of viewing sugar.
Actual Pounds Of Sugar A Day!
When you start paying even minimal amount of attention to your eating and drinks habits your are going to be amazed on the amount of sugar that are hidden in your food. Let’s go over a scenario here. Let’s say you come home and your husband tells you that your son for some reason started eating raw sugar out of the container. And, just before you blow up, your husband tells you that he only allowed your son to have 27 teaspoons. This way it doesn’t effect his dinner.
I will admit that putting it this way it may seem crazy unlikely this would happen. But, there are about 27 teaspoons of sugar in just one large McDonalds coke (no ice). Imagine the 44 and 64 oz gas station sodas.
Who Drinks This Much Soda!
I will admit that I use to drink a ton of Coke. I would easily drink more that 2 liters a day and let’s just put this into the same perspective as above. Let’s face it, a lot of up love our super unhealthy drinks and many of us easily drink a 2 liter a day. Now let’s look at just how much sugar is in one 2 liter. A two liter Coke has 6 servings with each serving having 39g of sugar. This is about 234g per bottle. With 4grams equaling about 1 teaspoon. We are at 58 and a half teaspoons of sugar per bottle. That is more than half a pound of sugar per bottle!
What about Snacks?
I really don’t want to make you hungry or crave a massively unhealthy snack. But, let’s go over my favorite, Oreos. Again I will admit that I can demolish the entire pack of these. I really do avoid buying them and when I do I really do try to eat healthy for at least the next week or so because these are just addicting.
Let’s go over the Mega Stuffed. On the nutritional label provided on the packaging, these have 18g of sugar per 2 cookies! At 4 grams per teaspoon thats more than 2 teaspoons per cookie! And you know that it almost impossible to stop at 1 so this adds up to a ton of sugar.
Can I Add Sugar To My Coffee?
This is something that sort of shocked me when I really looked at how much sugar I was consuming everyday. I use to feel slightly guilty for adding more then one teaspoon to my coffee. But, when you look at the facts the amount of raw sugar you add to your coffees or teas are usually minimal compared to the amounts that are in pre packaged or processed foods. Sugar is an item that should be closely monitored and really should be avoided. But you should understand that the amount of sugar in most foods that are prepared out of site have huge amounts of sugar. Below I will place a table with some popular foods and the amount of sugar in them. It really is amazing.
How Do I Find Out How Much Sugar Is In My Foods?
The best thing to do is simply try and start to look at nutritional labels. Here you will find all the information you’re going to need.
Step 1
Look for the serving size. For packages that are sized to eat in one “sitting” or one person it will usually show serving size of one per package. If you are looking at a larger package you will see a quantity per serving and number of servings per package. in the case of the Mega Stuffed Oreos, it shows 2 cookies per serving and about 14 serving per package. With things like cookies it may be easy to determine the amount of servings, but packages will sometimes shows weights. Here it can become very helpful to purchase an inexpensive food scale. (Here is one that I have liked) Another not completely accurate method is divide the number of servings per package and estimate the amount of the package you consumed. This works great if your the only one that eats from that that package. So by the end of the package you will have accounted for all of the sugar in it.
Step 2
After determining how many serving you consumed. Multiply the grams of sugar to the number of servings you consumed. If you ate four of these cookies, you would have had 2 servings with each serving containing 18g of sugar.
Step 3
Heres a measurement conversion for sugar
| 4 Grams = 1 Teaspoon |
| 48 Teaspoons = 1 Cup |
| 108.9 Teaspoons = 1 Pound of sugar |
Let’s Look At Some Popular Foods
| Coke 2 liter | 234g = 58.5 Teaspoons |
| 44 oz Coke (fountain no ice) | 146.7g = 36.7 Teaspoons |
| Oreos 2 cookies | 18g = 4.5 Teaspoons |
| Java Chip Frappuccino (venti) | 80g = 20 Teaspoons |
| Large French Vanilla Coffee Iced | 34g = 8.5 Teaspoons |
| Large Chocolate Shake McDonals | 122g = 30.5 Teaspoons |
Conclusions
Let’s face it we consume tons of sugar and in no way is this healthy for our bodies. There is almost no reason a person should be consuming sugar and especially in the quantities that we do nowadays. By cutting our sugar intake we can do our bodies a massive benefit. After cutting sugar many people start to experience more energy, changes in food tastes, better skin condition, and just all around better feeling. You most likely have heard this at least a half a million times but no hurting in hearing it just once more. You will greatly improve your health by lowering your chances of heart disease, diabetes, dental health, aging, and of course we can’t forget that cutting sugar can help cut pounds off our bellies.
Conclusion “Extended”
It is extremely easy to say just don’t eat sugar ever again. But let face it enjoying sweet foods and drink are a big part of life and this is where we really should view it differently. Sweet foods and drinks should simply be a treat. These foods should never take the pace of healthy alternatives such as water, vegetables, fruits, and basically anything healthy. It would be great to simply stop all consumption of processed sugars and there really isn’t any reason you shouldn’t. But consuming sugar should be treated as a treat alone and not used to quench a thirst or hunger.